Page 2 of Polished Off

“I can’t tell whether you want me to say I can, so you can stop worrying, or I can’t, so you can cancel the Minute Meet Up.”

“Definitely want it fixed, Tate. This mess is… It’s…” Words fail her, which isn’t something I’m used to. She might not be much of a chatterbox, but she always knows what to say.

Lots of years behind the bar, listening and doling out advice whenever requested, have honed her skills as a pseudo-therapist and made for a friend I rely on more than guys I’ve known my whole life.

“I can fix it. No sweat, babe. Can you grab that toolbox I gave you? I need the measuring tape, so I know what length pieces we need.”

Reality is, everything under here is fairly standard and straightforward. I’ll likely just ask Thomas over at Lowcountry Hardware to grab what I’ll need. But Jilly always does better when she’s got something to focus on. Sending her to grab stuff is really just giving myself a minute to pull my shit together.

Lying on my back under the sink with her beside me, despite the less than ideal circumstances, has my body wanting things my brain knows are never gonna happen. The slightest hint of willingness from Jill, and I’d have her pulled onto my lap and be eight deep inside her before she could blink. I bend my knees to hide the effect she always has on me while she wiggles her way out.

Her footsteps splash through the standing water as she hurries to the tiny office that’s situated across from the bathrooms along a narrow hallway behind the bar. Fortunately, the build of this old place didn’t originally include a kitchen, and when her uncle, the original owner, added it on about a decade ago, it was built a step lower than the rest of the building. So at least the whole place won’t be flooded.

Jill’s absence gives me a moment’s peace to grab my junk and reposition it into a hopefully less noticeable tent. I squeeze myself hard enough to see stars, relying on pain to stifle some of this lust. Sure, some of it’s plain old being hard up. I haven’t gotten my dick wet in over two years, because it’s as if the instant I laid eyes on Jill for the first time, my cock decided she’s it for me. No other woman will do. I can’t even get off to internet porn at this point. Nobody online holds a candle to my Jill.

The only, and I mean only, way I can come these days is hosting a solo hand party while imagining the filthy ways I want to worship Jill Elders. Glutton for punishment? Table for one.

Chapter

Three

JILL

In my office, I close the door and lean my back against it. My flip-flops, thrown on as I ran out the door to respond to the flood alarm, are slippery and wet, so I kick them toward the coatrack in the corner. I have no idea what’s going on this morning, but something’s different. There’s a charge in the air, electric and weighty, that seems to crackle every time Tate looks at me. It’s not the first time I’ve felt the urge to mount him like a prize bull at a rodeo, but today, it’s even harder to ignore.

I move to the disaster of my desk and scrounge around for blank paper and a functioning pen, so we can make a list of necessary parts to fix the pipe. Every night, I swear I’ll come in early and tidy up things in here, and every morning, my tired ass chooses an extra half hour of shuteye instead.

A soft knock at the door pulls me from my paper-pushing errand, and I look up to see Tate poke his head through the doorway. Water drips from his hair in sparkling drops onto his soaked white button-down. The shirt is plastered to his skin, nearly translucent and clinging to every dip and swell of muscle. I’ve seen him in swim shorts enough on the beach along the river to know he’s built like a granite deity, despite having a sincere hatred for routine exercise.

“Sorry, sorry, still looking for a notepad to make a quick shopping list for the hardware store. The toolbox is,” I gesture a waving hand toward a pile of equipment and extra things like tap keys and handles, “over there.”

“No hurry. I’m gonna pop into the men’s to dry off a bit.” Tate’s warm voice settles some of my anxiety about the mess. It also sends flutters of awareness dancing in my stomach, reminding me the chemistry between us is particularly combustible today.

He’s gone before I can swallow past my suddenly parched throat to respond. Am I imagining things, or did his eyes linger on me a little long? Probably wishful thinking from too little sleep and too much stress preparing for tonight’s hearts-and-flowers themed event.

Speed dating is almost the last theme I ever expected to host, but Shelly’s a persuasive force of nature. One minute, we’re talking about bringing in talent for live music and maybe, testing out trivia nights, then blamo. Speed dating.

The whole thing is a brain warp, considering I’m pretty well known around here for being anti-romance. It’s not even a matter of once burned, twice shy, or anything so tragically clichéd. I just can’t get past the idea of being so vulnerable and reliant on another person.

My mom, for all her awesome mom-ness, is the definition of Clingy. With a capital C. Happy to go with whatever flow my father set, even when it meant getting up in the middle of doing her own thing to assist him in his. From the outside view looking in as a kid, it seemed as if she was always putting her needs behind his. And doing it with a smile on her face. That part has always freaked me out the most, I think.

It’d be one thing if she did it begrudgingly because his job as a Navy officer was more illustrious than her job working in administration on whatever base we lived on. Or if he pressured her to submit to his whims. That’s not how it goes, though.

My dad can ask her what she’d like for dinner or what movie she wants to see a million times. She just sweetly responds with a meal she knows he prefers or a movie she’s heard him mention wanting to see. And she’s happy. So, so happy. Me? I find the whole idea terrifying.

A thud and groan drag me from my useless mental musings. Tate and I are the only ones here this early. I really hope the noises I just heard weren’t from him slipping in a puddle of dripped water. Be just my luck to wind my best friend in the hospital after he showed up to save the day for me. I grab a stack of newly laundered bar towels from a stack on the chair by my desk and cross quickly to the men’s room.

I push open the door and step inside, my eyes sweeping the floor in fear of finding Tate’s fallen body on the tile. Another low groan and expletive has my eyes flying up to meet his in the mirror. He didn’t fall. Not even close.

Tate is leaned against the single stall’s wall, his eyes glued to mine in the mirror, his wet shirt tucked under his chin and his pants open and pushed low enough to free what is an admirably enormous cock. One hand cups his balls while the other fists around the thick base of his shaft.

Is it creepy that I catalogue every detail even as I blush fluorescent pink and attempt to pull my eyes away? Probably, but there’s no way I’ll ever forget the image of that ruddy purplish mushroom head weeping shiny streams of clear precum over his knuckles as his fist continues working up and down the impossible-to-be-real length of him.

Tate’s body turns to face me, as though drawn by the same magnetic pull that’s been twisting between us all day. Hypnotized and helpless, my feet shuffle closer without conscious direction until I’m close enough his panting breath tickles the baby hairs along my temples.

“Fuck…shit…Jill…sorry…fuuuuuuck!” His groan deepens to a growl that echoes off the tiled walls. An arc of thick cum bows through the air across the small distance between us to land on my bare foot. A second hot splatter follows it, his shout of completion a roar in my ears.

Need, hot and demanding, thrums in my blood even as my brain frantically sends distress signals that urge me to run. I drop the towels and press ice-cold hands to my cheeks, the blush I feel setting them ablaze, the only warmth remaining in my shocked system.